“Girlfriend,” she inquired, “tell me about methotrexate.”
I answered; she hummed.
She asked, “You think I should take that, you who’ve felt it?”
I tried a balancing act: I wanted her to take anything that might keep her alive; I wanted to support her in her determination not to switch gears from a form of therapy that was about strengthening the immune system to one that could destroy it; I wanted her to take poison if poison would keep her alive.
We spoke when after she had taken the chemo her locks had fallen out and she asked, “Do you understand thin with bloat?”—because she had lost weight while parts of her body had grown fat.
She called when, for love of those for whose love of her, she was considering more chemo, although her heart and her body and her mind said no. And all she asked of me, at those moments, was that, as a person in a place similar to hers (although never the same), I would listen to her weigh options I had weighed and tell her the truth of what I had discovered, so she could use that in her weighing of the options.
A person in a similar place. For we were never, Audre and I, “sister survivors”, surviving in the same place. No one else I came to know who had cancer had travelled such a road, from breast cancer to liver cancer to ovarian cancer. From mastectomy to hysterectomy. From a person who started like the rest of us with little knowledge of cancer and its treatment to a person fully informed about the disease and the options for treatment; from a person just living to a person having to make decisions every day about what to do or not to do just to live, who found the courage to choose a road with no one ahead to guide her—no person who had chosen that road and walked it for so long through such pitfalls and reached the places she wanted to be.
Audre told me, as she told countless others, that I should write—a diary entry each day, poems. I didn’t.
When Gloria said Audre had died, I thought (I didn’t know what else to think) I would write her a poem. I couldn’t. I wrote, “I want you in this world.” Nothing else. What I meant was that although I believe she will always be in this world in her children, her partner, her blood and non-blood sisters, all her life’s work, I wanted her in this world—at the other end of a phone or postcard, talking about the loss of teeth and hair, about bloating bellies and cheeks and Bush and the Gulf War, about where she was going/had been to see an eclipse of the sun, about why something I had written was OK but not good enough because I had chickened out on homophobia, about why she would forgive me that (for a while) in the face of CNN images of Rodney King, Ethiopia, Brazilian street children, the thing they call “black-on-black violence” with its origins in white-on-black violence, in New York, DC, the townships of South Africa. About living with and dying from cancer. About her loving me and I, her.
For I loved her, this woman who came so late to my life but whose death leaves a void in the centre of my life.
Audre, there’s rosemary. That’s for remembrance.
Joan Anim-Addo
From Grenada, she has long championed Caribbean writers, particularly black women to a wide public and academic audience. She is the Director of the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, where she continues to teach and inspire students. Her publications include a libretto, Imoinda (2008), which re-imagines the life of a woman sold into the Atlantic slave trade, the poetry collections Haunted by History (2004) and Janie Cricketing Lady (2006), and a literary history, Touching the Body: History, Language and African-Caribbean Women’s Writing (2007). Her co-edited books include Caribbean-Scottish Relations (2007), and I am Black, White, Yellow: An Introduction to the Black Body in Europe (2007) and Interculturality and Gender (2009). She started Mango Publishing in 1995, and is the founder-editor of New Mango Season, a journal of Caribbean women’s writing.
Ashes, She Says
We do not—and I mean not—touch the computers today. We listen. I use “we” to include those of us whose lives these days are being recorded so much of the time. Still, we mindlessly provide data by one means or another. Right? Think social media, for example. Aha! That means you, I believe. And you. You, too. Yes, she smiles. And me? I’m as guilty as the rest. But what I’m inviting you to do is to put your finger on the link to today’s question: where do we find significant data from earlier times? She taps at the lobe of her right ear, holds up a handful of printed sheets and, her shoulder against a pillar crammed with cable, reads to her class:
It all happened before this place, before this time, long before you were born. And I forget so much. You see, memory has been tortured out of me. They tell me that I’ve never lived such a life, that I’m deluded to talk of Princes and Kings, palace and courtiers. They might just be right. I myself can’t trust a memory that produces lives so different from those we know so well here. Besides, my head’s too full. Too much has happened. Take what you want of this sorry tale and throw away the rest, mash it underfoot, like sand. Perhaps like ashes. Yes, ashes. Minutes, hours, days, a whole life time burnt to ashes.
At first he touched me with words. Words alone, mark you. Words, light and airy, words like bubbles dancing in morning sunlight. In that place before here, the surprise of his words made me look at him again, search his face, simply because I had never heard words behave like that before. Not that I could remember, anyway. Words that gurgled. Words that tickled. Words that sounded like I’d always known I’d hear them, at once familiar, at home, and magic. And all was just a matter of wonder to me. I looked and as I looked, I found that I’d caught his eye. I suppose we had, by some magic, ensnared each other.
Sister Historian, her head full of locks and thoughts of times gone by, pauses. She surveys the class seated behind computers, like robots trained only to input. Why do they always allocate her a computer room? She momentarily considers surveillance and control.
And why do you insist on hearing this tale? True, it might have a prince and even a sleeping beauty of sorts. But there the similarity ends. The cast of characters is too large. The setting is too diverse. And as for time, forget it. There is no unity. Quite the contrary. Besides, it’ll never do you any good, believe me. Look what good it did me.
You think I’m deliberately avoiding telling you. No. Then again, perhaps yes. More than that, I don’t understand why you want this stuff torn from my head where I’ve finally, and at bitter cost, laid it to rest. But maybe this day had to come, despite time, cavernous and mournful, time like tangled ancient undergrowth. Well, so be it.
Our eyes met. I suppose it was a matter of fate. Fatal. Our eyes met. Finally, in my father’s remembrance, since I was obliged to greet him, I did. Then he said something stupid, I recall. In truth, I was ready for something stupid from him. So there you are, he straight away gave me the gift I expected. He said something like, “You’ve changed.” Now, if there’s anything worse than being told by every other person in the world that you’ve changed—when you are simply unaware of having changed—it’s being told those words by a toad of a male, when you’re convinced that you’re looking at one you despise and loathe, utterly.
“Since we last met you are so changed,” I think he said. Puke! Vomit! Puke! Whether or not those were his exact words, the end result was fury on my part. So, I let him have it, as we say. That was that and that is that because my mind’s gone blank now. Go and trouble someone else with your insatiable demand for stories, Missy His-story—anna. Vexation beats in my heart now, because what you need to know is that we have no past. This is all we have: hell here on earth, without name, without past, with an impossible future. What more is there to tell, dammit?
The young teacher, dressed in recycled African Dutch wax prints, watches Jayden plunging his Afrocomb into bleached hair. He buries it deep so that the metal teeth are barely visible. She ponders his future, waggles a finger at him and reads on.
His words were the tinkle of bells, the ripple of gentle waves homing towards the shore, a drizzle at dawn, the shiver of sunset touch
ing the sea. We talked and talked. He was happy; I was happy. We promised to go to the palace, where we would live happily to the end of time. Wooduf, doof! Story done.
So why are you waiting and looking at me like that? Oh, and I forget! The curse of the children of Ham. A solid explanation almost forgotten. That’s why you see me here in rags, a fallen princess, fallen woman, husbandless, impossible mother. And still you want me to speak of love. Was there any such thing back then? Is there such a thing now? Ai! There is no end to this world’s madness.
Then again, his words, as I said, held me. Out of words we built a craft that held us both tight. Safe. Or so we thought. Poor me. How mean and foolish I was, then. Utterly. If I’d known what lay ahead, I’d have rushed to meet him, not hidden myself away when I knew he would call. I should have snatched every second. It might have added one more day of happiness to a life that has been not much more than drought, really. Go, take your chance. You’re young only once. Choose to be happy for however long it lasts. I didn’t. It’s enough to make me trace that trail to Carib’s Leap. There, to feast eyes on rocks like the teeth of giant reptiles, shudder at the frothing waves. And jump. Why don’t we? Why don’t we in this hell take the leaper’s solution? Story done.
Each boy, outdoor jacket zipped up despite the regulated room temperature, has stopped fidgeting. Out of habit, Chantelle is desperately trying to catch an eye. Anyone’s. She tugs at Jayden’s sleeve, then slowly leans on him, all the while glancing up at their teacher. Jayden’s resistance strains to breaking point until the teacher locks eyes with him. She beckons to him, points him to her chair and speaks directly to him. There is much for us to consider, Sister Historian says, as we embrace the topic of enslaved women and strategies of survival. She reads on.
You see me turning this way and that. It’s because sometimes I’m convinced others stole our happiness. Sometimes, though, conviction deserts me. I mean, we were two desperate people who should’ve nodded recognition and gone our separate ways, run hard in opposite directions. Maybe then none of this would’ve happened. Evidence: we didn’t like one another from the beginning. He didn’t care for me. I didn’t care for him. There was a moment of madness. We were both bereaved. We let stuff go to our heads. True, passion walked with madness for a few sweet moments. Sweet. Truly. But the rest has been sorrow, straight and simple. That’s the crux of it. I don’t know how to speak of happiness here. I know nothing whatsoever of happiness.
Ah! But I could tell you about tears. Ever wondered where the water comes from to fill the ocean washing the other side of this island? Watch these eyes. They’ve watered every space they’ve lit upon since before time, when we left those shores. And I wept before that with joy. I should’ve fallen on a borrowed spear. You see, words are no friends of mine. It’s why I prefer silence. In that respect, this place suits me. Lesson number one: silence. Everybody chewing on silence. You don’t speak, nobody worries there might be a problem. They studying you and your silence. In silence. Always. As if they have time for your worries on top of their own! Still, they read your face, your eyes, the droop of your shoulder, the heaviness of your body as you move through space from here to there. They read the quality of drag on your feet. They studying you. From the tones and textures of your moving there’s nothing they cannot tell. Man sleep in your bed? They can tell. Master at he nastiness again? Your child join the disappeared in dead of night? They can tell.
But as soon as you open your mouth, people start to worry. O Lawd, she goin’ bring trouble on we head. Now, what to say if anybody ask? I tell you, taking on the habit of silence was a helluvva difficult thing when I first came to this place. Okay, the whole world was upside down. When people should be speaking up, they clamp down. When for them to shout, they eyes rolling. Little strangled sounds escaping into kiss teeth. I couldn’t understand at all when I first came. As soon as speech fell from me, “Gal, shut you mouth!”
Was a hard lesson, especially as it was pure grieving had kept me silent. And there’s the rub. I suppose I would have opened my mouth long before. Grieving shut me up; grieving saved me blows. Hadn’t seen it like that before.
But he loved words. Words he rolled on the tongue, shaped them, honed their edges and sent them coursing through the air. His words filled my ears, my waking moments, my dreams. I heard his voice as I fell asleep. I heard his words in my dreams. I heard him as I woke. Ah! Wonderful for a while. I would laugh out loud so many times and there wouldn’t be a single soul present.
He was funny, you see. Without effort; without setting out to make a single joke. How I loved that! Thought myself in paradise on earth. Now, words? I curse them. I’ll tell you: words are loud farts in the wind. They assault a passing nostril, if luck would have it. They blow this way and that but mostly they go unnoticed. If we sniff them, we turn our noses up for a few seconds and that is that. Yes, I was once soundly hexed by words. Those days when his voice would not go away. The same with his touch. That too; I curse the memory of his touch. Of course it was a different story then.
Did I tell you that my father was a warrior? Now, this I can truly say, hand on heart: those two cared for each other. When Papa was at home, he would visit. I guess he was the son Papa never had, that everyone wished for. I’ve had time enough to think of this. He loved Papa. Papa died. I was all that was left. No, that’s not the truth. It’s despair in masquerade. True, they were like father and son. Closer than most fathers and sons. True, we were both lost souls after Papa died. True, we saw each other with new eyes. Maybe we should’ve run in our different directions. Maybe we were too headstrong. Maybe we should’ve listened to the advice of others.
Soon time passed too quickly with each other. We had an understanding. If what we felt for each other was magic, we didn’t care. We were prepared to live and die with it. We laughed. We laughed a lot.
So tell me about my eyes, Missy. Do they sparkle? No? Ha! Suppose I said he spoke always of my eyes, of my spirited ways, what would that tell you? Suppose I said we knew then, back in that place, that what we felt was an enchantment alert to the sap of trees, the trembling of leaves, the tender rays of moonlight, what would you say? Madness, right? Who knew that fire would follow? Fire, and now just ashes. It’s all that’s left. Go. Take any happiness you can. There is a time to come when you’ll find only ashes left. Ashes, settled and cold.
Sister Historian clears her throat and addresses her class: I did not promise that our data will offer any easy answers. Think, though. Is this “testimony” about one individual slave woman? The overall question we are addressing is this: were these victims or strategists? She drops her voice. Do not reach for the keyboards. Today’s input is of a different kind. It used to be called a conversation.
Simi Bedford
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, to parents who had come there from Sierra Leone, she was schooled in England and went on to read Law at Durham University. She worked in London as a model, in publishing, as a broadcaster, TV researcher/producer, and as a movie locations manager. She has three adult children and lives with her ex-husband in Southern France. She is the author of two novels, the autobiographical Yoruba Girl Dancing (1991), from which the following extract is taken, and Not with Silver (2007), a historical novel focusing on mid-18th-century West Africa, and on her own ancestral history. She is the proud grandmother of five.
From Yoruba Girl Dancing
A party of English explorers was trekking along a narrow jungle path in single file, sandwiched between their African bearers. The African bearers were clearly nervous, the ones in front rolling their eyes fearfully and the ones bringing up the rear jumping out of their skins at every turn. The explorers, with not a hair out of place, were on their way to find Tarzan. He was the only one who knew the jungle well enough to lead them to the treasure, which, according to the map left by a previous explorer, was buried in a virtually inaccessible part of the jungle. It could only be reached by crossing impossible terrain inhabited by hostile natives and dangerou
s animals.
Suddenly, up ahead, from the thick and impenetrable undergrowth, a terrifying thrashing and bellowing could be heard. The native bearers promptly downed their loads and disappeared to safety. I used to think that this was prudent behaviour on their part as they obviously knew the place and were familiar with the dangers and knew the best thing to do to avoid them. Now l bitterly resented their behaviour, because this kind of sensible precaution was considered cowardly in Croydon and, more to the point, the disapprobation rubbed off by association on me, the only representative of the black races in the whole of Thornton Heath.
The noise in the undergrowth reached a crescendo and one of the fleeing natives (you could depend on it every time) caught his foot in a tree root and fell heavily to the ground, rolling his eyes frantically and gibbering in fear. Whereupon the heroine, the only woman in the group, and who had previously shown no interest whatsoever in the bearers, unaccountably rushed to the native’s assistance just as a huge, rampaging, mad bull elephant thundered through the dense vegetation into the clearing. The fallen native, galvanised into action by this terrifying sight, freed his foot and slunk off into the greenery with a hideous expression on his face, leaving the heroine to her fate. She, instead of running away, stood still, screaming, while the infuriated animal, ears flapping and trumpeting with all its might, lunged at her, determined to run her down. Certain death only seconds away, the hero came leaping to the heroine’s defence and, with unerring aim, shot the elephant cleanly between the eyes, then dropped the gun in time to receive her fainting in his arms.
At that very moment, Tarzan burst onto the scene, calmed down the troupe of elephants, who were following behind the mad bull, and led the whole party off to the safety of his place for rest and recuperation before the next week.
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